


Asleep When You Should Be Awake

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Torchwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-19
Updated: 2006-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1628351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Owen and Tosh walk through Cardiff. He's drunk; she's *really* drunk - and it's Christmas Eve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Asleep When You Should Be Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Cosmic for a fab beta and some last-minute crisis-management :)
> 
> Written for Kate

 

 

It was a dry night, the pale overcast sky reflecting the glow of Cardiff's streetlights and Christmas decorations. The chill forced Owen to zip his jacket up past his chin and wish the wind wouldn't whistle quite so piercingly past his ears. They'd stayed in the pub three hours, he'd had seven or eight pints, but even that wasn't enough to keep December out. Tosh, on the other hand, was merry on cocktails and shots - no scarf, no gloves, the buttons on her coat undone and a few extra on her blouse, too, which flapped open with every little skip and stumble.

They were heading through town back to the Hub, where Tosh wanted to pick up some work to take home. Owen had already called a taxi to meet them there: he was all right walking the mile to his flat, but he didn't think Tosh would make it to hers without help. Not far from the Hub, they were harangued by drunken office-workers going up towards St Mary Street. Tosh gazed after them with a kind of longing which Owen found comical. She was such a stereotype - repressed and uptight, quiet and shy. Not quite so quiet with a few drinks down her - not quite so repressed, hopefully, either.

He found himself a couple of steps ahead of her as she stopped to talk to a group of women in mini-skirts and Santa hats who had just come out of a house where a party was in full swing. They were shouting to hear each other over the medley of Christmas hits blaring from the open front door, but Owen could still only catch the gist of the conversation. They were complimenting each other on their - oh, god, he didn't give a fuck. The street smelt like vomit and kebabs and across the road a shopkeeper was yelling at a guy pissing on his doorstep. Tosh finally wandered over, brandishing her newly acquired tinsel crown and a sprig of plastic mistletoe.

"Let's go," Owen said shortly. "If we don't get a move on, the taxi'll've been and gone before we get there." He hooked an arm through hers and steered her forcefully down the street towards the brightly lit Millennium Centre.

Tosh was dragging her heels. "Owen," she said, in an asking kind of voice.

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing on New Year's Eve?" She looked up at him with a grin that showed all her teeth, and he caught a waft of midori so strong his eyes watered.

"Got a party with the hospital people," he said. "Nurses, lots of nurses."

"Oh." Her tinsel crown scratched his face as she rested her head awkwardly on his shoulder.

They walked in silence for a while. "I've had an invitation from a girl in Preston," she said suddenly.

"Good for you," he said, sarcastically. "Preston's got to be the _most_ exciting place to be on New Year's Eve."

They rounded the corner into Roald Dahl Plass, festooned with tasteful strings of white lights and silver snowflake motifs. Tosh was murmuring to herself, passers-by were giving Owen sympathetic looks. By the time they'd reached the fountain, he was tired of supporting Tosh's drunken weight. He stopped and shrugged her off his shoulder.

She giggled; 'Such a lightweight,' thought Owen. Waving the mistletoe around her head, she twirled so that her coat fanned out; but half-way round her heel caught in a flagstone and she tripped. He steadied her, set her back upright, then scanned the plaza to see if the cab had already arrived. Tosh laid a hand on his arm, gently pulled it towards her.

"Hmm? Tosh, what are you doing?" She was so emotionally childish sometimes it grated on him like nettle rash. He wanted to shake her and scratch her and make her grow up. Instead, he tried not to look at her. She pushed her face close to his; she was holding her mistletoe high in the air between them and waggling her eyebrows. "Oh, come on, Owen, don't be a spoil-sport."

"Since you asked," he said coldly, then he leant down the short distance and kissed her, so quick and hard they banged teeth. She broke away, put her hand to her mouth. The headlights of a car held her briefly in silhouette, then the engine lulled as the taxi pulled over a few metres away. The driver rolled the window down, stuck his head out. "Name of Sato?"

"Yes. Yes, that's me." Tosh pulled herself together, opened the taxi door without looking back.

"Fuck," Owen muttered.

The door slammed and he spat the taste of her out on the ground. "Waste your mistletoe on _that_?" he yelled after the retreating car.

\---

Christmas day began for Toshiko when the phone rang: her parents singing, 'The Calypso Carol' onto her answerphone. "Call us when you get in, sweetheart! Don't work too hard!"

She buried her head under her pillow. It hurt, drinking. She always seemed to forget about that while the bottles behind the bar gleamed topaz and emerald and amber and diamond. And work! She'd forgotten to pick up those papers after all. She'd have to go in - probably no-one else would be there, so she wouldn't have to face Owen straight away. She sighed and rolled over, felt herself not caring. Just one more hour of sleep...

She woke up again groggily, a roar like a football crowd pulling her back to consciousness. A sudden breeze chilled her legs and the light of day seemed too bright. She tried to remember, had she forgotten to draw her curtains before she went to bed?

"Fuck!" She was awake properly, and standing on the edge of the roof of her building, wearing nothing but her black 'pulling' knickers and the blouse she hadn't taken off the night before. Below, the street, little toy cars and miniature figures, their faces turned upwards. To either side, a line of people; similarly in their pyjamas and nighties, or their Sunday best, and surrounding them, more people crying and reaching out to touch them. She looked around frantically, trying to understand what was happening, then - there, in the distance. A huge cloud, dark and solid in the sky, miles away. She immediately ran for the stairwell.

The door to her flat was wide open; no time to think about who might've been in there while she was out. Flick on the television, pull jeans and a bra out of the laundry basket, swill a glass of water down with some paracetamol to do something about this monster headache; process the news. Alien spaceship over London. A third of the world's population standing on rooftops. The Prime Minister out of action, disappeared.

Tosh muted the sound on the tv, sank down on the sofa. Her handbag lay on the floor where she'd dropped it last night, her mobile in two pieces next to it. The battery always fell out when she dropped the phone; she'd been meaning to order a replacement, just needed Suzie or Jack's signature on the requisition form. Lethargically she reached down to collect the bits up and put them back together. The phone's screen lit up, and after a long minute, flashed with the voicemail icon. She listened to her messages.

8:37 a.m. "Tosh! Get into the office as soon as you get this. Crisis meeting." Suzie.

9:52 a.m. "Toshiko, where are you?! Suzie and I are going to London. Get down to the Hub stat to back Owen up." Jack.

11:19 a.m. "Don't be such a fucking girl. Just 'cause you've got a hangover. I'm coming round." Owen.

She leaned her head back against the cushions, held the phone up to read the time. He'd be here in a minute. Her hands were shaking.

"Where've you been?" he said from the doorway, his voice low and rough. So he's got a hangover too, she thought. Good.

She didn't look round, just pointed upwards.

"Oh." He crossed the room, sat down cross-legged on the rug at her feet. "Looked like they were all going to jump."

Her eyes prickled. Should have taken off her mascara, must look like a panda. She met Owen's gaze at last. "We didn't-" she faltered. "I didn't have a clue what was going on, until-" She indicated the tv, still flashing pictures of the skull-faced aliens between shots of anxious newsreaders talking intently, silently.

Owen put his hand on her knee, and she felt a tingle of electricity down her leg. "I'm glad you're not dead," he said earnestly.

"Yeah," she murmured.

\-----

 

 

 


End file.
